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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Visual Art Freezing Chelsea Werner: "The Sloth Bear"

Posted by Jen Graves on Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 3:03 PM

I got a very irritated voicemail last Friday morning from my new intern, Chelsea Werner, who was standing outside the Free Sheep Foundation craning for a glimpse at the supposed Japanese sloth bear in residence inside. It was raining heavily, and nothing living was in the window—there was a zoo setup, with trees painted on the walls, a canopy of mesh with leaves near the ceiling, a stump with bare branches set on the floor, and a bear-sized hole in one of the walls. The hole was empty.

Werner called Free Sheep cofounder DK Pan to let him know she was there to see the bear. Could he rouse it? Several rainy minutes elapsed. Then something fuzzy began rustling around in the hole. "It looked like the action of somebody putting on a bear costume, maybe, or—I don't know," Werner said. She was getting cold.

Pan finally came out. (We have therefore confirmed that he is not the bear; I was sort of wishing he were.) Werner, shivering, couldn't get much of out Pan. At first he said the bear was tired because at night passersby kept poking the window. Could you go poke the bear? she wanted to know. What can you tell me about it? Finally, "You'll have to talk to the Zoo to You Foundation," he told her. When she asked him how to get in touch with Zoo to You, he gave it up: "It's the PDL people," he told her—meaning the artists who, under that name, create false spectacles all around town. This one just rained on Chelsea Werner.

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So there's no sloth bear? :(

Posted by Kayla on December 16, 2008 at 3:02 PM

Dang, now I'll have to tell my relatives not to bother visiting Seattle.

Posted by Will in Seattle on December 16, 2008 at 3:10 PM

Someone got Punk'd!

Posted by Chip Douglas on December 16, 2008 at 3:13 PM

Disneyland is a false spectacle.

Posted by Paul Morrison on December 16, 2008 at 3:14 PM

Chelsea's not too bright, eh?

Posted by Intern Fail on December 16, 2008 at 3:23 PM

Anybody else see this coming?

Posted by Greg on December 16, 2008 at 3:26 PM

all part of the intern hazing process?

Posted by josh on December 16, 2008 at 3:32 PM

I think the bear is fond of used bookstores and coffee shops. That's why we don't see him much.

Posted by petenice on December 16, 2008 at 3:32 PM

This is the kind of hard-hitting investigative journalism America needs. Send Chelsea to Olympia!

Posted by hillside_hoyden on December 16, 2008 at 3:37 PM

well no shit there's no bear. a sloth bear is still a fucking bear - godless killing machine.

Posted by rara avis on December 16, 2008 at 3:39 PM

Oh, so that explains the bear in Bulldog News.

I thought it was looking for handouts, petenice.

Posted by Will in Seattle on December 16, 2008 at 3:42 PM

There's no such thing as a Japanese Sloth Bear. Sloth Bears come from many thousands of miles away from Japan.

Posted by Fnarf on December 16, 2008 at 4:32 PM

Every time I walk by there, there's always something laying around that looks like a giant joke shop piece of crap. It doesn't look real at all. Like something out of a South Park "Bono is a giant POS" episode.

Posted by babyItsSlothOutside on December 16, 2008 at 5:51 PM

sorry to chelsea for waiting out in the rain and cold... but is the presence of the animal really the criteria for in/validation? would christmas be any less if an investigation determined there was no santa claus?

Posted by free sheep foundation on December 16, 2008 at 11:09 PM

Damn Free Sheep Foundation, if this was supposed to be an analogy to Santa Claus, then get somebody friendlier to watch your fake bear and offer people cookies and spiced wine or something!

Sounds like Chelsea had an experience that was much more analogous to getting stood up for a blind date, frankly.

Posted by raisedbywolves on December 16, 2008 at 11:34 PM

Chelsea is my friend, and when she told me about it later she was pretty bummed about it.

She should get a raise (oh wait, she's an unpaid intern)!

Posted by Benji on December 17, 2008 at 3:30 AM

pdl's art makes me mad, which i suppose is the point, which makes me even more mad for giving them the satisfaction. so the big surprise is that people can be fooled when you lie to them? that doesn't make any interesting point about the audience, it just makes you an asshole. PDL, the Art of the Asshole. I'm sure that tagline would just tickle them pink.

Posted by sari on December 17, 2008 at 9:10 AM

If my bike had proper brakes it wouldn't have been so bad. If there hadn't been freezing rain I wouldn't have minded. I don't hold it against the Free Sheep Foundation, at least D.K. offered me some tea, and yeah, I don't find the artistic statement very intriguing, or well executed, but hell, look at all the attention they've gotten. And screw you Intern Fail, whoever you are.

Posted by face-killah on December 23, 2008 at 11:43 AM